Archive of posts filed under the economics category.
irrigating less
In 1940, Los Angeles County had 250,000 acres of harvested cropland. By the end of World War II LA County was, by far, the most agriculturally productive county in California. In the most recent Census of Agriculture, conducted in 2012, acreage had declined to just 40,000 acres and LA County was but a minor contributor …
Will an informal norm work here, or do I need a city permit for my amplified event?
Wandering the neighborhood on this morning’s bike ride, I ran across this sign: I’m reading Robert Ellickson’s 1991 book Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. It’s a fascinating bit of legal scholarship about how residents of Shasta County, in California, manage the problems posed by cattle wandering off the ranch and onto other folks’ …
people build markets
I said some stuff about water markets in this Q&A with Drew Beckwith of Western Resources Advocates: Beckwith: That’s certainly an NGO concern, that an unbridled market does not take into account the environment and that water would just run uphill towards money. Fleck: This is a problem with thinking about markets, right? A market …
How much water does Arizona need?
The question of the headline, which was the title for the talks I gave last week in Phoenix was, I admit, a little cheeky. I’m just some schlub from New Mexico with an academic title and a book. That doesn’t mean I know the answer to the question. But to the extent I have an …
UC Davis irrigation experiment shows big increase in alfalfa yield per acre foot of water
Cleverly managed deficit irrigation (when you significantly reduce water applied during the hot part of the year) substantially increased yield per unit water applied in a new study by researchers at UC Davis. In controlled side-by-side field experiments, Dan Putnam and his colleagues demonstrated that if you do it right, a big reduction in water …
On the importance of getting the boundaries right in water management and governance
I’m working this weekend on two talks, one a webinar Wednesday with Audubon and the other a lecture for UNM Water Resources grad students Thursday, that both touch on one of the fundamental challenges in getting water management right – the question of how we draw the boundaries, both geographically but also conceptually – around …
New study suggests water conservation remains the cheapest alternative
A new study published last week by Heather Cooley and colleagues at the Pacific Institute concludes that water conservation remains the cheapest water supply alternative as compared to the big new sources widely discussed, things like storm water capture, desalination, and recycling/reuse: Urban water conservation and efficiency are the most cost-effective ways to meet current …
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The Salton Sea and the risk of failure
While I was writing my book about the future of Colorado River water management, I joked about my efforts to leave the Salton Sea out of the story. It was only sort of a joke. The problems of the Salton Sea, an inland water body fed by agricultural drainage from the Imperial Valley, are an …
rainfall variability is for not fighting over
Fascinating new paper by Lewis Davis at Union College (gated) arguing that the need for collaboration in early agricultural societies with highly variable rainfall led to the development of cultural norms of not fighting over water: The link between rainfall variation and individual responsibility draws on an extensive theoretical and empirical literature on risk sharing among …
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